Australian Teens Replicate Martin Shkreli's HIV Drug for $2

Groundbreaking.

Pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli angered pretty much the entire world when he changed the prices of a drug that treats HIV from $13.50 per tablet to a whopping $750 per tablet.

In September, Martin increased the price of the drug Daraprim, an anti-parasitic drug used to treat low immunity in HIV patients and others, by 5000%. The move obviously drew ire from, well, everyone since Martin took an otherwise affordable and essential drug, and then made it barely obtainable. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, high school students in Australia decided to take it as a challenge, so they cooked up a replica of his HIV drug and it only cost about $2 per dose to make.

The teenagers from Sydney Grammar School told the Morning Herald they were more enthusiastic about creating a replica Daraprim because it's a real world problem, not just a high school assignment.

"The background to this made it seem more important," James Wood, 17, told the paper.

It's not only a real world problem, but a really, really important real world problem. Daraprim isn't just one of many treatments, it's on the World Health Organization's list of essential drugs. The Australian boys are heroes for sure, but unfortunately their cheaper model of the drug won't be available in the U.S. — which is also because of Martin.

"While the drug is out of patent, Martin's Turing Pharmaceuticals controls its distribution and sale through a loophole called the 'closed distribution model'," University of Sydney Associate Professor Matthew Todd told the Herald. "To take the drug to market as a generic, you need to compare it to Turing's product. If Turing won't allow the comparisons to take place, you'd need to fund a whole new trial."

It turns out Martin isn't very impressed by these students' accomplishments. He took to Twitter to tear them down.